Recipe courtesy of Mary Pratt of Elihu Farm
Total time: 10-15 minutes
If you’ve thought about making Hollandaise Sauce, do you shrug, because you’ve heard it’s too complicated? This “egg sauce” is ideal sauce for spring.
Ingredients
*Ingredients available at the farmers’ market
- 1 lemon
- 1 whole egg *
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter* (or 1 tbsp olive oil* and 3 tbsp butter* or 2 tbsp of each)
- 1 tbsp heavy cream*
- Salt to taste
- Optional additions:
Lemon zest
Whipped heavy cream*
Parsley *
Capers
Orange zest and orange juice
Instructions
- Whisk 1 whole egg in a bowl which will fit atop a 1½ quart saucepan. Whisk in 1 tbsp lemon juice; add a pat of cold butter. Using a whole egg instead of egg yolks makes a more forgiving sauce that’s less likely to curdle. (Use 2 egg yolks if you prefer a richer sauce.)
- Heat the olive oil and butter, or just butter, in another pan, until the butter foams but doesn’t burn, (If you like a more lemony sauce, add some lemon zest.) Keep warm.
- Bring to a simmer about half an inch of water in a 1-1/2 or 2-quart pan. Put the bowl of egg mixture over the simmering water (no need for an official double boiler). The bowl cannot touch the water.
- Whisk constantly as the egg heats up and the butter begins to melt. Don’t heat too fast, or the sauce might curdle. Then, add the hot butter or butter and oil to the bowl, in a slow stream while whisking briskly. Allow the sauce to heat slowly, whisking more and more, until it changes texture and appears custardy.
- If the sauce begins to curdle, remove from the bowl from the heat. Add a bit of lemon juice and a smidgen of butter or oil and whisk until the sauce becomes smooth. Then put the bowl back on the pan and continue, until all the butter or butter and oil are incorporated.
- Remove from the heat; whisk in 1 tbsp heavy cream to make the sauce more spreadable. Keep warm until ready to serve on asparagus, broccoli, fish, or atop eggs Benedict.
Additions and substitutions: For orange flavor, add orange juice and half the lemon juice, and substitute the zest of half an orange. Other additions can include, whipped cream * (Sauce Mousseline), capers (don’t overdo), finely minced parsley, or some paprika.
